Not everyone survives here in the jungle. It's not that they get eaten by tigers or crocodiles, it's just that they aren't cut out for the environment. As a result, they end up dropping out. About 30 to 40 percent of the students who begin the 25th Infantry Division's three-week Jungle Operations Training Course, or JOTC, on Oahu.
Mental and physical fatigue can set in quickly for those who are not in top physical condition, Completing the grueling course takes a lot of mental stamina as well. You are in the jungle from the time you enter until the time you leave. There are long movements over steep terrain and if you get wet the first day, you'll be wet for the next five days.
Most visitors to Oahu come for Honolulu and the beach there at Waikiki and most don't venture far enough inland to learn of the jungles there.
But Soldiers who arrive at the Schofield Barracks' East Range Training Center, nestled between the Waianae mountain range on the west and the Koolau range on the east, aren't there to surf or swim. Instead, they are there to learn how to survive in the lush jungle there that most tourists will never see.
Eight JOTC courses a year are taught, he said, with 75 students per class. Troops from other services as well as foreign military personnel often attend as well.
All of the training is hands-on, as opposed to classroom learning. For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are no beds or other comforts of home. During the JOTC, soldiers operate beneath the thick canopy of trees atop the insect-infested jungle floor.
During week one, Soldiers learn basic jungle survival skills such as building shelters from natural materials, moving through thick vegetation and across the water, and procuring food and water from nature.
The jungle environment around the Pacific area of operations includes such a wide variety of flora and fauna that teaching which plants or animals to eat would be fruitless. Instead, the survival training is general in nature.
Week two at JOTC focuses on squad tactics in the jungle. In the jungle tactics are different than they would be in more open areas such as in Iraq or parts of Afghanistan.
For example, since the foliage is so thick in the jungle, squad movements are conducted in single file instead of a wedge formation.
Communications is also much more difficult in the jungle. The thick vegetation and mountainous terrain limits radio signal strength. During JOTC, students are taught how to make field expedient antennas to boost signal strength.
Week three at JOTC culminates with platoon-level operations against an opposing force. Instructors, acting as observer-controllers, follow the students and grade them. Since JOTC is a leadership course, attendees who are sergeant and above get graded on leadership as well.
